How to establish and maintain financial sustainability in ULLL/ UCE centres: Keys and tips to success

Financial sustainability for ULLL/ UCE centres has long been of interest to university leaders, current and potential funders, and the communities that they serve. However, those centres face an innumerable of challenges in establishing and maintaining financial sustainability.

The centres depend on diverse sets of funding sources to sustain their operations. Most of them have been receiving funds from multiple sources (e.g., EU, government, foundations, and private donors) besides their income from different streams (e.g., program fees, project grants, contracts, etc). Recently the substantial cutbacks in both government and other funds enforce that the Centres should develop or reconsider their strategies to support their financial sustainability. Due to changes and inconsistency in the funding climate faced by many Centres, they have begun to explore profitable programs/projects and potential partnerships with different stakeholders as a way to respond to the changing resource environment.

Not only in the manufacturing and finance sector, calculating return on investment (ROI) is now a part of every area of business. ROI calculation on training has a number of reasons such as justifying the training budget, determining the effectiveness of training, collecting evidence to management/stakeholders.

Balancing financial sustainability with the social and institutional mission is a core challenge for most of the centres. Evaluating their activities and operations based on profitability and mission impact, as well as the interaction in between these two dimensions, may be another challenge for the centres to develop their strategic plans to manage short-term financial concerns while maintaining long-term mission goals.

The Autumn Seminar aims to identify major challenges of financial sustainability that are common among the Centres, to synthesize key lessons learned and promising practices to overcome these challenges, and to discuss the ways to match social mission and financial concerns.

TOPICS

The main topics of this eucen Autumn Seminar will be:

Financial models of ULLL/UCE centres using different sources of funding

Identification of flagship programs: Open enrolment and Custom programs for diverse stakeholders

ROI calculations in training environments

Balancing Financial Sustainability with the institutions’ Social Mission

AUDIENCE

All people involved or planning to be involved in University Lifelong Learning: managers and staff of ULLL/UCE, university staff, decision-makers, professors, researchers, stakeholders, etc.

FORMAT

The autumn seminar is structured to stimulate dialogue, gather new ideas and work together towards new collaborations and projects.

Thursday, 16 November

The keynote speaker from UC Berkeleys will launch the topic with a overseas perspective.It will be a great opportunity to discuss current issues of financial sustainability in ULLL/UCE centres and future trends and opportunities.

A researcher and an experienced practitioner will both present their perspectives and experience on the topic in a vis-a-vis discussion.

After the end of the first day, there will be a social program including an optional dinner at the restaurant “El Merendero de la Mari” at the Port Vell (Barcelona) for pleasant time and networking.

Friday, 17 November

You have the chance to present your experience through case studies, good practices or analyses related to the seminar topic – and discuss it with colleagues during the poster session.

A brainstorming session in small groups will follow and give the opportunity to challenge the keynotes, researcher and the practitioner interventions in order to gain new perspectives to your work.

The Learning Café of the afternoon, in four strands, will give you the chance to discuss in-depth:

Financial models of ULLL/UCE centres using different sources of funding

Identification of flagship programs: Open enrolment and custom programs for diverse stakeholders

ROI calculations in training environments

Balancing Financial Sustainability with the institutions’ Social Mission